Plastic Pollution Degradation Experiment
Location
CoLab, COM 186
Start Date
30-4-2026 10:45 AM
Document Type
Poster
Description
We are harnessing resources from the natural environment to address a longstanding plastic pollution epidemic in the world. We are attempting to degrade plastic trash with the goal of reducing waste and promoting sustainability. We have introduced a special protein into living algae cells that have the capacity to degrade standard plastics. We intend to use that algae to eat away our pollution problem and hopefully provide a blueprint for more widespread use and research. We have introduced “Agrobacterium” the plastic degradation protein into our algae samples. We have been able to isolate the DNA from the algae sample. We have grown the sample and verified it contains the protein we administered into its DNA. We have tested, measured and observed the algae’s protein interacting with plastic pollution. We are in the process of analyzing the plastic degradation results data as supportive or nonsuppurative to the main goal of waste reduction. We will be documenting and releasing data compiled during the duration of the research experiment for scientific evidence and further refinement of processes. As of March 30, 2026 my group has successfully cloned algae cells and our sample was shown to be negative for the Met/ Pet gene that we introduced and were looking to confirm the presence of. We will continue to attempt to isolate a positive algae clone that includes the plastic eating protein so that we can continue to test the effectiveness of the samples and the impact on our overall goal. We hope one day these methods can be used as a practical way to address the harmful impacts of pollution.
Plastic Pollution Degradation Experiment
CoLab, COM 186
We are harnessing resources from the natural environment to address a longstanding plastic pollution epidemic in the world. We are attempting to degrade plastic trash with the goal of reducing waste and promoting sustainability. We have introduced a special protein into living algae cells that have the capacity to degrade standard plastics. We intend to use that algae to eat away our pollution problem and hopefully provide a blueprint for more widespread use and research. We have introduced “Agrobacterium” the plastic degradation protein into our algae samples. We have been able to isolate the DNA from the algae sample. We have grown the sample and verified it contains the protein we administered into its DNA. We have tested, measured and observed the algae’s protein interacting with plastic pollution. We are in the process of analyzing the plastic degradation results data as supportive or nonsuppurative to the main goal of waste reduction. We will be documenting and releasing data compiled during the duration of the research experiment for scientific evidence and further refinement of processes. As of March 30, 2026 my group has successfully cloned algae cells and our sample was shown to be negative for the Met/ Pet gene that we introduced and were looking to confirm the presence of. We will continue to attempt to isolate a positive algae clone that includes the plastic eating protein so that we can continue to test the effectiveness of the samples and the impact on our overall goal. We hope one day these methods can be used as a practical way to address the harmful impacts of pollution.
Comments
The faculty mentor for this project was Heather Seitz.